


Son Seul Ami

by morethanprinceofcats



Category: La Légende du Roi Arthur - Savio & Skread & Zaho/Chouquet/Attia
Genre: Execution, F/M, Forced Betrothal, Intimidation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22485034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morethanprinceofcats/pseuds/morethanprinceofcats
Summary: Guinevere gets to know her intended husband.
Relationships: Guinevere/Maleagant (La Légende du Roi Arthur)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Son Seul Ami

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobberBaroness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/gifts).



The late winter sun stood high and silver in a grey sky, illuminating the harsh, breathtaking beauty of the courtyard, as well as her escort. Though Guenivere’s father and guardians had managed to persuade their captor and her betrothed that they should never be alone together improperly, they could not remove him from his opinion that a young couple could be alone together in such a place as this. And so this man who had laid siege to her countryside and held her fortress in his fist must be permitted to trot her out like a mare, even if, thankfully, he could not yet ride her like one.

Guenivere clutched the bouquet of snowdrops and crocuses he had pressed upon her in her frozen gloved hands and marched mechanically alongside him, as though he were taking her to behead her, as she had heard this courtyard had been used against insurgents. But in truth, he was not so bad as she had feared. He was no old, cruel madman, nor a sickly tyrannical boy, but a handsome man in the prime of youth, with an easy, elegant voice, prone to breaking sweetly as he grew excited. As unhappy as she was to have her childhood dreams of love wrested from her, her hopes for the brave knight in her dreams whose face she could not yet see, Guenivere was no longer a child. Girl though she may still have been, she knew one day adulthood would come and force responsibilities on her: marry well, bear sons, rule bravely. 

Perhaps her only remaining dream was to come to care for this man, this man who had chosen her, from the moment her father and his household had bowed their broken heads to him, the moment he had strutted in to hear their concessions and laid his eyes on her thistle-blond head, from the moment he had lifted her chin with the touch of his leather clad fingers and asked her her name.

It could not be so hard. She must set herself to it, and still her crawling flesh when he took her limp arm in his strong and forceful one.

“My sweet princess!” he exclaimed as she failed in her task. “You shiver? If I could only command the weather as easily as I command armies.”

Gallantly he swept from his shoulders his woolen cape, trimmed in fur, and wrapped her in it snugly - too snugly, perhaps, as he pressed the clasp longer than need be, his hands lingering over her heart. But the fur was so warm, still carrying his body heat, and she was so exhausted from resisting his poetry, his strenuous affectations of charm. She did not bother to tell him she was no princess.

“My lord Maleagant,” she said in her most humble voice. “Thank you.”

He took her hands lingeringly. 

“You must never fear to ask me for anything. There is nothing with which I would not provide you. Beautiful Guenivere. You look like one of these snowdrops.”

Perhaps she  _ had _ only shivered from the cold. And his hands, too, were warm. She forced herself to look up into his eyes. They did not seem cruel.

“I had no such fears,” she said: in this highly specific way, truthfully. Her fears were of a frequently different nature. “I simply did not notice the cold. I don’t think of such things, in your presence.”

It was also true, for she had been thinking on her doom. She smiled a little, acknowledging to herself a secret folly. Maleagant returned her smile voraciously, pleased by what she allowed herself to imply.

“Warm you though I may, you cannot risk your health.” He chucked her chin very gently, in a chiding way. “Though I can hardly blame you. When the sun shines so brightly, who notices a chill in the air?” 

His laughter rang through the open yard, bright as a bell. 

“Yes,” she said innocently, though she suspected he did not mean the sun above them, the sun that shamed all evil and hid no truths. “Indeed, it is a beautiful morning.”

“Very beautiful,” he agreed, his eyes on hers in a way that began to make her itch. Gently, but forcefully, he took the flowers from her and tucked them into her braids, taking her arm and then holding her hand additionally, drawing her further down the frost-covered path.

_ He is brave and strong,  _ she told herself.  _ He is a leader of men, beloved of his troops. Of course he must be confident. _

If only she could siphon some of that confidence for herself.

“There are more flowers here than I had realized,” she said, with a tentative hope in her voice. “Spring will be upon us soon.”

“Spring, and our marriage,” he said, to a terrible leaping in her stomach.

“Our marriage? So quickly?” she asked, trying to be impartial.

“How can I put it off? And soon….” He shrugged, looking admittedly magnificent, the more ornamental armor he wore now glinting in the sunlight. “Soon I shall rule Britain as it is my right to. I will owe the people a queen.” His voice softened. “But you are not for the people, Guenivere. You are my choice. My only choice.”

“Your only choice? Of… bride?”

Maleagant dismissed this. “I have only ever pursued what is mine by laws of man and nature. A kingship, when I am the only worthy king in the land. I have never had the option to refrain. But you… I did not have to take you. You are the one thing I choose for myself.”

Her throat felt like it was closing up. Her own choice had been so brutally ripped from her, but this… he thought he had given her a gift.

“You are too kind,” she murmured. “There are… Others, surely, who would have you… Others who are eligible, who bring you allies,” she corrected herself as quickly as she could. “We are a small people, my lord…”

“That’s how I know it is you I want, my love. Not your father’s allegiance. Not your lands or your armies. Your shining crystal eyes and your tender heart.”

_ He speaks so well, he speaks so sincerely _ , she thought desperately. A kind of madness came over her.

“I fear I am not the woman for you,” she said, her fingers tightening in his hand as she stopped suddenly in the path. “Just a little girl, who doesn’t know what she wants…”

“My love,” said Maleagant, drawing her hands up to his lips with both of his own hands, and then, to her surprise, going gracefully to his knee, not caring about how cold the stone beneath him was. His eyes were so intense on hers it was almost as though she were not looking down on him at all, but being consumed by him. “Of  _ course  _ you are wary. You were not raised to wed a king.”

There was a shocking sympathy in his voice. 

“Don’t think for a moment I mean to leave you in the dark. You will not be alone; I will guide you, protect you. I’ll  _ teach _ you.” She felt a sudden chill on her wrist and startled. Slowly, he was easing her right glove down over her hand. “You don’t know what you want because you haven’t been shown yet,” he whispered against her fingers as he drew them against his cheek.

“I’ll teach you how to want me,” said Maleagant. Something dropped in her stomach as he pressed a hot kiss into her palm.

Could this be the love she had invented, guilty, giddy, as she’d lain in her bed at night and dreamed wide awake? Was that what she was feeling? She heard herself gasp audibly as he kissed down the inside of her fingers, and felt herself flush when he smirked up into her face. She saw the arrogant toss of his hair as he got to his feet without even brushing off his knees. Hastily she pulled the glove back over her hand, eager to erase the feel of his silken lips, but unable to do so. A current seemed to run up her hand to her heart, and when he clasped that hand in his own and resumed their walk once more, her heartbeat raced.

They turned a corner in the courtyard, and something caught her attention - anything, anything to move away from this topic of conversation. “Who is that in the yard?”

“Why, guests, my sweet love,” he said, almost happily. “They’re here to see us.”

Her speculation turned swiftly to horror as they drew nearer and she saw they were men shivering in poor cloth and old armor, draped in chains, surrounded by his black-clad soldiers. There were five or six of them, each of them flanked by a man with a weapon. So many men and so many weapons, for such a feeble force.

“No,” she gasped.

He smiled at her greedily. 

“Yes,” he said, showing a boyish flash of teeth. “They’re rebels. Those who deny my rule must find it out for themselves, is that not so?” He had a delicious laugh, but it made her nearly lose her breakfast.

She could see… oh, God in Heaven, there was a wagon, a covered wagon… But in the light dusting of snow on the grass, she saw streaks of red.

“You’re executing them!”

“I am,” he agreed. “In fact I’m executing them now.”

He threw out his arm in a haughty motion and made a precise gesture of his hand. His men each took a prisoner by the shoulders and forced him to kneel, in near unison.

“Stop! Stop! Please!”

Guenivere ran ahead, almost slipping on her lady’s heels in the icy pathway; she heard Maleagant near giggle at it, and call after her, “Carefully, my lady! May I remind you again, not to risk yourself? I would hate to see you seriously injured. Why, you could fall on something sharp.”

She stopped herself before the ghastly tableau, and turned wildly to Maleagant. She did not know, in that moment, what he wanted. If his plan was to execute them now, then her path was clear. Numbly she clasped her hands in beseechment and fell to her knees in a cloud of her white gown, his black cloak. 

“I beg of you. As your future queen. Give me these men’s lives; trust them to my keeping.”

He approached her idly, touching her braided head in a shockingly familiar caress.

“How prettily you beg. Not like a queen at all.”

She lowered her eyelashes in humility.

“Pardon me, my lord -”

“Oh, no need to apologize. I find it a pleasing quality.”

He flashed her a smile, and kindly he helped her to her feet, pulling her into his arms.

“Of course you may have these poor sinners.”

“Oh, my lord. My love,” she said in a rush of gratitude and hopeless desire to keep pleasing him. “Thank you-”

“Ready?” he called to his soldiers, then turned his eyes hungrily on Guenivere’s. They glittered with excitement, like a child witnessing fireflies. “Give my queen the lives of these men.”

Guenivere did not realize in the first instant; it was the sound of clanking chains and a couple of frightened grunts that made her turn and scream, “No!” 

One strong arm went around her waist, the other caught her throat; he held her indecently closely; and in front of her horrified eyes the swords, axes all fell. Abruptly she turned around, which conveniently meant turning into his arms, where he held her protectively against his chest. But she could never forget the bright flash of silver and red. She could never unhear the last sounds of those brave men, who had died in a vain attempt to earn their freedom from a demon.

Guenivere had seen death before; she had witnessed executions. But senselessness… She was defenceless against it. She was too shocked even to weep.

Dimly she noted a hand enmeshed in her hair. Dimly she noted the breath, hot on her neck. Maleagant had craned his head around as if he were going to kiss her on the cheek, but he paused.

“You see, my princess?” he whispered, the motion of his lips sensuous against the curve of her ear; she twitched in his tight grip. “I’ll teach you to want me.”

His fingers in her hair tightened just enough to pull her head back; she looked up into those proud, satisfied eyes.

“That, sweet love, was your first lesson.”


End file.
